


Somewhere in a Yellow Wood

by XFilesinAMajor



Series: GLOW [6]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:08:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22599877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XFilesinAMajor/pseuds/XFilesinAMajor
Summary: Just a little offshoot of Time Out of Mind.
Relationships: Stan Pines/Original Female Character(s)
Series: GLOW [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1574239
Comments: 10
Kudos: 7





	Somewhere in a Yellow Wood

**Author's Note:**

> So there I was, busily working on a PROPER sequel to Time Out of Mind, and my brain went "Hey you know how much it sucked having to rip Teagan and 1989 Stan apart? You know in some version of the multiverse it would have gone the other way, right?" And then I wrote this little piece of fluff.

_With every choice we make, another alternate universe is born. For every missed meeting, there is some reality out there where it wasn’t missed. For every wrong turn, a universe with a right one. For every lost child, a universe where they lived and grew to make their own choices. For every fight that ended a relationship, a universe where feelings were mended and love bloomed. For every new job begun, a universe where corporate offered it to somebody else._

_It’s why the multiverse is infinite. Yes, there are universes where humankind evolved from chipmunks or newts instead of apes. There are universes where Germany won World War Two, and universes where the Cold War escalated into a post-apocalyptic wasteland. There are also universes where you just didn’t read that one book you really enjoyed._

_In most universes, in a place called Gravity Falls, Oregon, a woman named Teagan Kettle never accidentally swallowed a firefly that would alter the course of her life forever. But because it’s a multiverse, there are still infinite realities in which she did. Of those, she only went on to survive the following year in half of them. And of those, in only a fraction (an infinite fraction) of them did she pick up a lost time tape and inadvertently send herself to 1989._

_In many of those universes, she returned to her own time. In some of them, she decided to stay—and in several of_ those _unfortunate realities she wound up burning to death and forever scarring the man she’d wanted to remain beside. In several others she found a way to survive, only to be tracked down by the Time Paradox Avoidance Enforcement Squadron._

_But again, it’s the multiverse. And that means there was also a universe where she succeeded._

“You said I’m me either way, right? You said age doesn’t matter. I’m the same either way, you love me either way. Right?” She jiggled her head, but the question was too important for a nod to suffice as answer. “ _Right_?” he repeated, an edge of desperation mixed with the anger in his voice. It had been a long time since he’d felt like this about anybody, and even longer since he actually believed someone felt this way about _him_. For it to have all been a lie…he couldn’t stand the thought.

“Yes.” The word came out thick and clipped, suggesting she was close to tears. But it was a yes. “I do.”

“Then who _cares_ about the future?” he demanded, putting his hands on her shoulders as if the contact could help her understand. He’d never been good with words, not like his brother. He could _talk_ , yes, but articulating his feelings? Explaining something like this? That was so much harder. “Stay here with me, now,” he asked, putting it out there as baldly as he could. “You’re not losing anything, I…” A slight tremor in his voice betrayed the strength of his own emotions. He _needed_ her to stay. Needed it. “I promise. Stay here and help me. And we’ll make a _new_ future.”

The look on her face was promising, but she still hesitated. “It’s not just about you. I have kids, remember?” Teagan sounded almost as if she wished she didn’t, not as though she was looking for an excuse to leave. That was encouraging, too. “I know you don’t know them, but I _love_ them. If we change the future, what happens to them?”

Luckily, he had an answer to that. She didn’t know it, but he’d spent half of last night just watching her sleep and thinking up solutions to exactly that sort of question. “You’re still out there somewhere in Michigan, right?” She nodded, and he plunged ahead. “You’ll still marry Frank, you’ll still have your kids. They’ll still have you. Maybe things’ll go differently, but they’ll still have their mom.”

Stan moved his hands up to her face, gently cupping her cheeks and lifting her chin. Her skin was so smooth, and the way she tipped her face just that slightest bit into his touch…he hadn’t known anyone would ever look at him like that. He hadn’t even known that he’d want someone to. “And _I’ll_ still have _you_ ,” he told her. Even _he_ could hear the raw need in his voice. To make up for it, he gave her a hopeful smile. “Everybody wins.”

There. He’d said it. He’d put himself out there, and he didn’t regret it. But seeing the conflict in her face, watching her blink and spill a set of tears onto her cheeks, that didn’t feel good. He wondered if he was being selfish, forcing this choice on her. Of course he was; he should have just dealt with his feelings and let her go back to her kids. He didn’t _have_ any kids, but he knew how it was with family, and—

“Okay,” she told him, more tears welling up in her eyes.

He stared at her in disbelief. He’d wanted her to stay more than anything, he’d had to try…but had he honestly expected a _yes_? “Really?”

She laughed, sniffled, blinked out a few more tears, and stepped closer into his embrace. “Yes!” Her hands slipped around his back, hugging him tightly as she pressed her damp face against his chest. He felt more than heard the long, shaky breath that she took next. “Yes. Okay. Yes. I’ll stay. I’m…I think I’m probably a terrible person. I know I’m a terrible mother. But I can’t leave you, Stan.” She tipped her tear-streaked face up to really look at him. Her eyes were red, her face was pink and splotchy, her nose was starting to run, and he didn’t care about any of it.

Stan felt the backs of his own eyes start to prickle. Rather than display that sort of weakness, he bent his head and kissed her. The kiss was deep and urgent in a way that spoke not of desire, but dangerous intensities of love. It did nothing to prevent the tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes, or stop the ones still coming from hers. They clung to each other, emotion shaking them as profoundly as any earthquake.

“I love you,” she told him breathlessly when they broke apart for air. She kissed him again, pressing her fingers along the base of his skull, and then again, and then again. Somehow she was still crying, and between every kiss she repeated her words. “I love you, Stan. I love you. I love you.”

He smoothed her damp cheeks with his thumbs and pressed his forehead against hers. He was about to say that he loved her, too, when her mouth found his again. Saying things didn’t seem to matter so much, as it dawned on him that he had ways of showing her.

Teagan had the same idea, slowly moving down to the floor when her knees threatened to give out. She didn’t know if she was making the right choice—suspected, in fact, that she was making the wrong one—but she knew without a doubt that this was the only choice she _could_ make. Her feelings were too strong for her to be able to walk away from him. Not now, maybe not ever. It didn’t matter that she was risking everything, because she absolutely _couldn’t leave him_.

Words weren’t enough. Kissing wasn’t enough. _Nothing_ was enough to express their depths of feeling, really. Making love on the cool stone floor of the underground laboratory was as close as they could come. It was unremarkable, as far as sex went. Missionary, very little foreplay, shared climax, over with fairly quickly. But the _emotion_ of it. _That_ was something else.

She kept her arms around his lower back afterward, insisting on keeping him pressed against her for as long as she could stand the weight. The cold floor against her back didn’t seem to matter very much. _I’m an idiot_ , she thought ruefully. _Choosing this man over everything else._ And she didn’t regret it one bit.

Lying on top of her, propping himself up on his forearms just enough so that she could breathe, Stan thought elatedly _She’s staying. Holy shit, she’s_ staying _. Every morning. I get to wake up to her every morning. Real food, every day. I can keep making her laugh. I can keep making her moan like that. I don’t have to go back to being alone down here night after night. I can take her out dancing. She’s staying! I’m gonna need a bigger bed…no,_ we’re _gonna need a bigger bed._

That last thought was revolutionary in his mind. _We_. It had been something like twenty years since he’d had a thought like that in the present tense. Being part of a _we_. It felt good. It felt…like coming home.

Eventually, Teagan sighed and gave him a perfunctory kiss on the shoulder. “Okay, back to reality.” He rolled off to the side, and she sat up. “If I’m going to stay, there’s…something we need to take care of.” She swallowed nervously. “Something I haven’t told you.”

“Okay,” Stan said warily, also pushing himself upright. He’d been doing a victory lap, and here she was worrying about something already. _Lemme guess, another attempt to protect the timeline?_

“We have to find a firefly,” she said frankly, which certainly took him by surprise. “So I can eat it.” Surprise turned to confusion. “So that I don’t die.”

Confusion turned to shock. “What the fuck?!” he yelped, jerking back as though she’d slapped him. Wounded by the reaction, Teagan stared into her lap and nodded wordlessly. Stan was too stunned to think of anything reassuring. “What the…why didn’t… _how_ … _what_?”

She kept staring down at her bare thighs, though the answer was unlikely to be hidden anywhere in them. “Remember how I said I glow because I swallowed a firefly? Well, we found out a little while after that that if I don’t eat another firefly every so often, my body temperature starts rising until I spontaneously combust.”

She flicked her gaze upward to see him staring at her, eyes wide. “Ford managed to make a pill out of them that lasts a month. I took it the day before I came here, which is why I’ve been fine so far.”

Stan’s jaw dropped slightly as his brain strung together connections. “You said he saved your life. _That’s_ how?” She nodded, and even though the situation was serious he felt the beginnings of a smile. “Science. Of _course_ that’s how the nerd saves your life! Couldn’t you’ve just…I dunno, caught a bunch of fireflies in a jar, saved ‘em for winter?”

“In theory,” Teagan agreed with a grimace. “But I really didn’t want to. Have you ever eaten live bugs? Or even dead ones?” She gagged at the memory of it. “Pills are _much_ nicer, and I trusted their potency. I mean, all of it was guesswork when we started. At first we didn’t even know what it was I needed to eat, and then we had to figure out how long it lasted…I wasn’t sure if whatever made the fireflies help would still work, if they were long dead.” She grimaced even harder than before. “But I guess now, I have to try.”

“Wait, hold up, hold up.” He actually held out a hand in front of her as he tried to collect his thoughts. “How do you _know_ you’ll die?”

“I’ve seen it happen,” she admitted, looking down at her lap again. “To toads, but still. And I kept getting hotter and hotter to touch, until no one _could_ touch me anymore.” She shuddered at the memory, and Stan finally thought to offer her some comfort. He scooted closer, putting an arm over her bare shoulder. “It was awful.”

She could still remember the strangeness of it—feeling perfectly normal on the inside, but having everyone she loved flinch away from her scalding touch. “You burned yourself,” she remembered suddenly, grabbing his hand and holding it palm-up in front of her, tracing lines that weren’t there. “I needed a hand to hold, Stan, and we’d only been together about a week, and no one else even wanted to touch me by then, but you held my hand that night.”

A heavy silence fell and stretched. “Having seconds thoughts after all?” Stan asked at length. “Wanna go back to him?”

She shook her head, her hand tightening around the one she was holding. “He’s you.” Somehow, saying that aloud reassured her, and she smiled at him. “You’d do the exact same thing. I know you would, because I know you.” She laughed a little, shaking her head at the situation. “I’m sorry all my memories of falling in love with you came before we met.”

Hearing her laugh was reassuring for him, too. “Hey, don’t worry, sweetie! You were in that timeline for a year.”

“Fourteen months.”

“Whatever. We’re gonna have _years_ to make memories. Ones we’ll _both_ remember.”

“You mean that?”

He snorted. “Course I do! What sorta question’s that?”

Teagan exhaled, slow and shaky. “Well, then I guess we need to figure out where to find some dead fireflies I can choke down.” She got a good look at the expression on Stan’s face, and narrowed her eyes. “What’s so funny?”

He shrugged and turned the other way, as though that could conceal his broad grin. “Just never thought I’d find a woman who was ready to eat _bugs_ to stay with me, that’s all.”

*

Teagan wasn’t the only one willing to make sacrifices. By the time they finally made their way make to the main level of the house, Stan had come to terms with the fact that keeping her around was going to cost him _money_. Not just in the sense of feeding two people on a more permanent basis, but in the sense that fireflies in early March were extremely hard to come by, and therefore anyone who might have one was likely to demand some sort of compensation.

Of course, he wasn’t going to just fork over that cash if he didn’t have to. Museums, he reasoned, always had nerdy stuff like boards full of bugs with pins stuck through them. The solution to Teagan’s problem—no, to _their_ problem—might be sneaking around there after hours and seeing if they could find it. That was Plan A.

But Plan B did involve posting an ad in the local paper, offering a reward for anyone who had a Gravity Falls firefly in their possession. They’d post a flyer in the Shack, too. Hopefully that would yield two or three, which might take them through to the summer when live ones would be easier to come by.

Plan C was making a road trip to the University of Oregon and breaking into _their_ science department. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that. They had about a week to find a plan that worked, and plans D-F were fairly outlandish. A firefly corpse was about the weirdest thing Stan had ever considered stealing, but he was sure he could do it. If it kept Teagan here and alive, nothing was going to stop him.

Not that she was up to going anywhere tonight; she’d practically fallen asleep on him when he was carrying her up the steps. She begged him to wait until she could help break into the museum, claiming she’d learned a few useful tricks in the past few years. He believed her, but the idea of waiting for anything just didn’t sit well with him. He was in love, and she could _die_ , and she wanted him to _wait_? He didn’t outright tell her he wouldn’t, but he hedged enough to make her suspicious.

“Fine, we’ll go tonight,” she sighed after a few minutes of his evasions.

“You’re dead on your feet, sweetheart,” he argued.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re a liability.”

“A liability?” She actually laughed. “A liability for _what_? Breaking into the Gravity Falls History Museum? Oooh, yeah, we might serve some hard time for _that_ if we’re caught!”

Stan stared at her. “You’ve never been hotter than you are right now. You know that, right?”

Teagan’s cheeks took on a pinkish tint, but she looked pleased with herself. “No, I was definitely hotter twenty years ago. But I’ll take the compliment.” Slowly, a mischievous grin took over her face. “That’s right, you’ve never _seen_ me do anything criminal, have you?”

“I’m pretty sure what we did the other night’s illegal in at least a couple states.”

Her grin widened. “And I was good at it, right?”

The memory was enough to stir certain amorous feelings. “Hell yeah.”

She twitched her eyebrows, implying it was something they might do again soon. “Well. It’s not the only law I’m good at breaking.”

“You gonna show me how you fight one of these days, too?” The idea of her bashing some schmuck’s head in with a tire jack was strangely sexy image, too—though Stan hoped, for her sake, that it was never one he got to witness personally.

“I’m not great,” she admitted, “and I don’t think I ever will be. I’m more of a lover, you know? More of a nurturer.”

“Good news for me. I could use some nurturing.”

He grabbed her ass, pulling her in close, but she swatted his hand away. “Stop it! You only want to plow me so I’ll get all comfy and happy and pass out. Then you’ll sneak off to the museum without me. I don’t think so!”

“Trust me, it’s not the _only_ reason.” Stan sighed, giving up the chase at least for the moment. That _had_ been his plan. “Why’s it so important to you to come along, anyhow? If it’s not a big risk, just let me go take care of it.”

“Because…” She didn’t really _know_ why it mattered to her, and had to pause to give that serious consideration. “Because we’re a team. If I’m staying, we’re a team. Ride or die.”

Never having heard the phrase before, Stan was more than slightly perturbed. “Huh? No one’s dying.” Was this another risk she hadn’t told him about?

Teagan put a hand to her forehead and shut her eyes. “I’m an idiot. Sorry. It’s a phrase from my time. It just means, hm…it means I’m with you no matter what. Ha, I guess I’ve got to work on not dropping anachronisms, huh?”

“Anachrawat?”

For reasons he didn’t quite understand, the question made her smile and place her palm on his chest. “I love you.”

One eyebrow pulled down in confusion as he tried to figure out what he’d said to trigger this, but in the end he decided it didn’t really matter. “Love you too, crazy lady.”

She grinned up at him for several lengthy seconds, then spun around and limped toward the steps. “Let’s get this show on the road, yeah? What do I need?”

Ordinarily, he’d have recommended dark clothes. But given she glowed in the dark, what would be the point? The blanket in the tv room was a dark green, though. That might work. He’d just need to grab a few tools from upstairs. “Hold on.” He looked around for his car keys, spotting them on top of the tv and tossing them to her. “Go start up the car. The seats are gonna be freezing.”

“So you’ll send the limping woman with no pants out there to start it?” She succeeded in suppressing her laughter, but not her smirk.

“Hey, I’m being _considerate_!” He puffed out his chest. “Thinking ahead so you don’t spend the whole ride on cold leather seats! I’ve gotta go grab some stuff.”

“If you’re committed to being a gentleman, I’ve got a better idea. _You_ turn on the car, then you can grab your gear while I add some shorts and shoes to this ensemble.” She looked down at herself. “You know, maybe we should find a second-hand store to break into while we’re at it. It’d be nice to have more than one outfit.”

Stan chuckled. “You ain’t holdin’ back anymore, are ya! I like it.”

She tossed her hair in a terrible imitation of a fashion model before winking at him. “You starting that car up, or what?” Without waiting for an answer, she turned and hobbled toward the stairs. Her gait was _almost_ normal now, but it still felt frustratingly slow and clumsy to her.

By the time Stan came upstairs and pulled a slim briefcase out from under the bed, she had her shorts on, coupled with a pair of his socks pulled up high enough to pass as leg-warmers. It looked ridiculous, she knew—but Stan had already seen her look worse, and if everything went according to plan no one else would be seeing her anyway.

_He_ pulled on a dark shirt and pants, just to be on the safe side, and picked up the briefcase. “Ready?”

“You bet.” She really _was_ glad he’d thought to warm up the car. The idea of stepping out there at night without a coat made her cringe. Then, on their way out the front door, Stan paused to grab a blanket from the living room. At first she thought he was just being extra considerate, but then her brain connected the dots: it was cover, in case they needed to _not_ be seen.

Making herself a warm, dark cloak that could conceal her face and hands sounded like a very good idea. Not that she’d know how…but maybe if she was staying in the 80s, she’d have time for a new hobby.

The Stanmobile was programmed to the same radio station he’d turned to in the house when they tried dancing. Because she was in a good mood and it kept her awake, she did some ridiculous lip-synching to entertain Stan as they drove. He looked truly horrified at first, but laughed and started singing along softly after he’d gotten over the shock.

It was just past midnight when they parked the car behind the museum. As expected, there was one streetlight on and no one else in sight. “Do the police even _patrol_?” Teagan asked, looking around. “I mean, there must be _some_ crime here, right?”

Stan shrugged. “They’re a bunch of morons here. They’ll leave everything unlocked all night, and then act surprised when their shit gets stolen. That old bag watching me when I tried to lift your clothes was the first person here who’s showed any brains in seven years. Don’t get me wrong, works out okay for _me_ , but yeesh.”

She shook her head in wonder. “Want me to throw the blanket on?”

There was no light near the back door of the museum. He nodded, and she pulled it around her like the cloak she’d been imagining. Internally, she debated telling Stan that they’d done something very similar to this in 2013. He’d brought her here just to make her practice the lock-picking skills they’d been honing, but it had wound up being a surprisingly fun date. On the one hand, now that she’d finally admitted everything about her condition, she was sick of keeping secrets. But on the other hand, she wanted to focus on making _new_ memories.

She’d mention it if it came up.

Walking across the grass and sidewalk in the middle of the night felt eerie. Everything was _so_ empty and quiet. Having Stan next to her made it exciting rather than disturbing. When they got to the doorway, she held the dark blanket up, blocking her light from the street but illuminating the deadbolt on the door perfectly. Stan squatted down to open his briefcase, produced a few thin metal rods, and jiggled them around inside the lock with impressive finesse. The bolt clicked, and he straightened up to turn the knob.

There had been no other cars around, and it was a smallish town—fair to assume no one bothered paying a night watchman to stalk around the inside of the museum looking for intruders. As soon as the door was shut behind them, she dropped the blanket and turned her head from side to side. They hadn’t come through the back door last time she was here, and her sense of direction wasn’t stellar.

Stan packed his lock-picking supplies back up before slipping his hand into hers. “Let’s find some bugs.”

“I don’t know where I’m going, do you?”

He laughed, the sound unnervingly loud in the otherwise silent museum. “I look like I hang around museums a lot?”

“You gonna punch me if I say yes?” she grinned.

“Yeah.” He grinned back. For a moment, they were a couple of dopey idiots lost in the intoxicating throws of new love.

The spell broke. “Good,” Teagan purred, stepping close and tipping her head up so that he felt her breath on his neck. Leaning even closer, she skimmed her lips along his throat. Desire was coming off her in waves, and— _holy shit did she just say she wants me to hit her?_ “But let’s find the bugs first.” Just like that she stepped back, grinning like a cat, ridiculously pleased with herself.

Stan crossed his arms and stared at her. It was a good excuse for not walking anywhere for a minute. “You’re having _way_ too much fun with this.”

“Sorry.” She was, ever so slightly. “I like doing stuff with you.”

It was hard to argue with that. “Me too.” He smiled quickly, reassuring her. “But this ain’t a game, either, sweetie. Let’s find what we’re here for. _Then_ we can have fun.”

Of course—he was worried about her. Now that she’d agreed to stay, the only thing that stood a chance of taking her from him was a failure to find some fireflies. He wasn’t going to allow that. Alright, business first.

They walked slowly through the exhibit on pioneer times until the came to a corner and found a map on the wall. There was a natural history gallery to their left. If that failed to yield anything, they could check the offices in the basement. That was probably where any collections not currently on display would be stored.

As they searched, Teagan found her anxiety rising again. Stan _needed_ to focus on the urgency of their mission. He was a man of action, and he wanted to get it done so he could move on to the next thing. Hopefully the next thing was bed. That was probably the other reason she was starting to worry; she was tired.

Not that she was averse to taking action. Especially in cases where her life depended on it. But it had been easier for her when she could focus on the fun parts, distract herself from the real importance of the mission. The sooner they found a stupid firefly the sooner she could turn off the stupid voice in her head that was prattling on that they were going to get caught, or they wouldn’t find any, or even if they did she was somehow going to have to go back to her original timeline.

“Stan?” she asked, when scanning taxidermized displays of local fauna yielded nothing and the voice in her head became more insistent.

“Yeah?” He was further down near Native Flora of Southern Oregon. She walked closer, until she was near enough to feel the heat of his body. It was reassuring enough that she managed to voice her nagging concerns.

“Do you…do you even think I _can_ stay here? I mean, I was only here to go into the past because I moved to Gravity Falls and started dating you in 2013. If I stay here and the timeline changes, then I won’t do that. And even if I do, you might be off with me, not hanging around the Mystery Shack. We’ll never meet. I won’t move here. I won’t come back in time. And suddenly I won’t be _here_.” She looked up at him anxiously. “Right? Do you think?” When he didn’t answer right away, she continued to fret. “That’s a paradox, isn’t it. That’s exactly what a paradox is. Ugh, I hate time travel!”

He followed what she was saying—barely, but he followed it. “Look,” he said after some thought. “Someone must’ve invented that magic spot or gadget in the woods, right? That means you’re not the first person to time travel around here. So there must be some way to deal with them, right? The paradoxes?”

Teagan relaxed fractionally. “Maybe. Or maybe I’m the only one who screwed up enough to _create_ a paradox.”

He reached up a hand and stroked her hair gently. “You sure are good at freaking out over pointless junk.”

“It’s not pointless,” she protested, without any real fire. “I’m just…scared. Of losing you.”

“Well listen,” Stan assured her, “if any time paradoxes turn up here looking to take away _my_ girl, I’m gonna punch ‘em in the face. Alright?”

Softly, she laughed. “I’d like to see that, actually.”

There were no insect displays up here. Time to investigate the basement. At this point, Teagan was eager to get the whole thing over with so she could get home and get to bed. A thought which had occurred to Stan a few hours before now swam through her mind: _If I’m staying, we’re going to have to get a bigger bed._ The idea of doing something so mundane as buying a mattress with Stan sounded wonderful. Of course, if she was going to start being seen in public…

“I’m going to need a new identity, aren’t I,” she asked in a hushed voice as Stan tried to force an office door in the basement. It refused to budge, and he opened up his lock-picking tools again.

“Why, so we’re a matching set?” he retorted, and laughed. “Might not be a bad idea. Since there’s already someone with your face and name floating around out there.”

Holding one slender metal rod up at an angle, Stan slipped another one into the keyhole underneath it. The door swung open easily. “Yeah,” Teagan agreed thoughtfully, locating and flipping on the light switch as she walked into the room. “I’m going to need a new social security number.”

Stan’s bark of laughter from behind was loud enough to startle her, and she spun around. He was leaning with one hand against the door frame, holding his stomach as he tried to contain himself. “Ah, just…you’re…you’re so cute, Teegs. You _need_ a social security number, right. Can’t…can’t wait to pay the government that tax bill?” He dissolved into laughter again.

She pinched her face into a scowl, since it was the only way to keep her own amusement in check. A smirk still seeped through at the corners. “Shut up.”

This room was clearly administrative, not storage. There were two modest desks and a couple of filing cabinets. Useless…not that that stopped Stan from going through the drawers to see if there was anything of value. He found a manila envelope marked _Petty cash_ and tucked it into his pocket. Time to move on; he jerked his head back toward the doorway, and Teagan came quickly. “So what’s your new name gonna be?” he asked as they headed to the next closed door. This one was also locked. He sighed.

“Here, let me do one,” she offered, taking the case from his hands and kneeling down to size up the keyhole. “I need the practice anyway.”

Interested, Stan leaned up against the nearest wall and watched her work. She was clearly a newbie; the look of concentration on her face as she wiggled the pick around made it pretty obvious, as did the way she swore and dropped it after pushing in the wrong spot. But she did get there in only about a minute. _And she cheats at cards, too._ He nodded in approval when she straightened back up and opened the door.

This room was much more promising. It was larger than the last, and lined with shelves. One wall was nearly hidden by stacks of boxes, but the one along the back had an array of glass jars. The whole place smelled faintly of alcohol and mothballs. “So?” he asked again as she turned on the light.

“So, what?” she asked over her shoulder, limping quickly toward the shelves along the back wall.

“Your name, sweetie.” He went to the same shelf, crouching down beside her as he looked at the lower jars. “I always went for something familiar if I could. You get used to answering to it a lot quicker. Don’t even have to change your signature much. Hey, cool! A dead snake!” He grabbed a large jar, pulling it off the shelf and showing it to her. A coiled dead snake several inches wide floated in the liquid. “This place is a goldmine! I’m taking this home.”

Teagan made a face of disgust and was about to ask what he planned to do with a dead snake when her brain caught up. Half the exhibits in the Mystery Shack had started out as dead animals. The better question would be what _wouldn’t_ he do with a dead snake.

And this was the man she loved. Yep.

“Can I still be Teagan?” she asked, leaning down to peer into the back of the next shelf. “That’s something we can do?”

“Sure!” Stan exclaimed, surprised she didn’t already know that. “Maybe change up the spelling or something, though.”

She bit her lower lip, still staring hard at the jars. This shelf _was_ bugs. They were close! “I’ll dump the A. And a last name that doesn’t feel _too_ different…any ideas?”

“Pines?” he blurted out, cringing the second he realized he’d said it.

“No…” she murmured, still looking at the jars. “I think I’d need a functioning fake identity _to_ get married.” She kept her focus firmly on the jars of bugs, because much as she wanted to see his face in that moment she didn’t think she could handle bursting into tears of happiness again tonight.

Stan cleared this throat awkwardly. “Right. Heh.” He coughed again. “Um. Castle, then?”

“Yes!” She didn’t turn, but the excitement was in her voice. “Tegan Castle. Can we really do that?”

“Leave it to me, sweetie.”

“Excellent.” She straightened back up, holding a small jar with what looked like several large flies inside it. _Fireflies,_ the small typed label read. _Gravity Falls Forrest, 1981._ She watched his eyes scan the words, and relished the relief she saw spreading through his face and all the way into his spine and shoulders. Unable to contain herself anymore, she shoved the jar back onto the shelf and flung her arms around his neck. He met her halfway, kissing her hard for a long time. When they finally parted she scooped the jar back up, hugging it to her chest with both hands. “Tegan Castle,” she repeated, looking down at it once more as she blinked back fresh tears. “I think I’m really going to like being her.”

**Author's Note:**

> Points to anyone who gets the title reference, by the way.


End file.
